nd the calling of Louis Philippe to the throne. Paris
became at once the Mecca to which the lovers of liberty throughout
Europe resorted. Thither Cooper hastened from his home in Dresden. He
reached the city in August, 1830. There he watched with the profoundest
interest the political movements that were going on about him. The
reactionary tendencies that early began to manifest themselves in the
rule of the Citizen King, brought to him the same disappointment and the
same disgust that it did to all the ardent republicans of the Old World.
There is much in what he says to remind the reader of the feelings
expressed by Heine, who had likewise hurried to Paris after the July
revolution, and who was venting his indignation and contempt in the
columns of the Augsburg "Allgemeine Zeitung." Occasional passages bear
even a close similarity. Cooper on one occasion describes Louis Philippe
walking about among his subjects wearing a white hat, carrying a red
umbrella, and evidently laboring to act in an easy and affable manner.
"In short," he said in a phrase that might have been written by the
great German, "he was condescending with all his might."

Close upon the revolution in France followed the revolt of Poland. The
insurrection lasted about ten months, and during its progress the
feelings of Cooper were profoundly stirred in behalf of that people.
With this his personal friendship with the Polish poet, Mickiewicz, had
probably a great deal to do; for at Rome a close intimacy had sprung up
between him and that author. At a meeting, held in Paris on the 4th of
July, 1831, at which Cooper presided, a sum of money was contributed to
aid the revolters in their struggle. He presided also at other (p. 108)
meetings to advance the same cause, and acted as chairman of a committee
to raise funds to assist the Polish soldiers who were fighting for
independence, and when this failed, to relieve the exiles in their
distress. Two addresses to the American people signed by him in his
official capacity--one written in July, 1831, and the other in June,
1832--appeared in the American papers of those years; and the fervor
that characterizes them both leaves little doubt as to their authorship.

Into the great struggle going on in Europe, either openly or silently
between aristocracy and democracy, he now, indeed, threw himself with
his whole heart. In certain respects this was a disadvantage. Whenever
Cooper's feelings on political subje